Children's requests teach Santa a lesson

Posted: Tuesday, December 12, 2000

TRISHA CAPANSKYGlobe-News Staff Writer

Wishes heard by Santa are not always from children whose requests are spurred by playground word of mouth or advertisements. Some come from children who are less fortunate; be they without health, love or legs.

These, described the Santa at Westgate Mall, are cases where even the simplest request evokes a complicated response.

"This is when old Santa goes into top gear," he said, trying without success to empty his face of the emotion he feels toward these children.

Though many children who visit Santa are as healthy and happy as kids in a Norman Rockwell painting and are as difficult for Santa to hold them - wiggling on his lap - as it is to hold a buzz saw, others are difficult in a different way.

These, Santa said, he carries from their prostheses to the Santa chair and his lap.

Some are crippled; some with cerebral palsy; others mentally retarded. But not one has ever asked Santa for the gift of legs or, for the cerebral palsy boy born without eyes and the ability to communicate, sight or a voice.

Barbies, scooters and train sets filled many of the requests, but most are satisfied with hugs and Santa's attention.

"I can see that smile come across their faces as I'm talking to them and sometimes I look up to smile at the teachers who brought them, only to see that they are the ones who are crying," he said. "`I quickly look back at the happy child. We don't need to get Santa to crying, too."

It's the requests of yet others, who have all of their faculties and limbs intact, but are cursed with the disability of poverty or un-love that Santa can't fill as easily. Such as the request for an apple by one boy, or for another's parents to stop fighting.

It is these requests that has taught Santa a lesson in one wish he wasn't fulfilling.

"When I heard that, I realized that kid isn't getting enough love from his family," he said. "In all seven years of being Santa, I haven't told the kids how much Santa loves them until now."

With requests such as these and the constant tears Santa says he has to blink back, someone once asked him "Santa, how much are you paid to do that job"'